Taylor’s Exquisite 812ce 12-fret Grand Concert
One of the crown jewels in Sweetwater’s Guitar Gallery, the Taylor 812ce 12-fret acoustic-electric guitar is an absolute gem. There’s nothing quite like the look, feel, and sound of a well-crafted small-body guitar. With the 812ce, Taylor puts Grand Concert playability and tonality into an acoustic-electric handcrafted from the finest solid tonewoods and graced with luxurious 800 Series appointments. Featuring a Sitka spruce top, Indian rosewood back and sides, a tropical mahogany neck, and a West African ebony fingerboard, the 812ce is perfect for tracking and layering. It plays very comfortably, thanks to its Grand Concert body, graceful Venetian cutaway, ergonomically radiused rosewood armrest, and shorter scale length. You’ll love the clear, balanced tone — a sound forged by Taylor’s revolutionary V-Class bracing and amplified flawlessly by the onboard Expression System 2 electronics. As your eyes drink in this instrument’s understated elegance, your hands savor its flawless playability, and your ears revel in its rich, organic tone, you’ll treasure your Taylor 812ce 12-fret. It’s a feast for the senses.
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Ideal for fingerstyle and tracking
For fingerstyle and tracking, Sweetwater’s guitar gurus favor Taylor’s Grand Concert body style, which gives you clear, balanced tone that lends itself to layering with other instruments in thicker arrangements where a larger-bodied acoustic would take up too much sonic real estate. The 12th-fret neck join gives this instrument an easy, relaxed handfeel, while the shifted bridge location dials up midrange assertiveness. This guitar’s smaller Grand Concert body and tapered waist not only make it a great studio and stage guitar, but its short scale and lighter string tension also make it easier to play — perfect for younger players with small hands. It also makes for a more efficient design; the smaller body is inherently stronger, which enables it to be more lightly braced, making it easier to set the strings in motion.
Taylor Master Luthier Andy PowersV-Class bracing: a sonic revelation
Bracing is the internal framework of an acoustic guitar that helps shape its sound. Although X-bracing has been standard in acoustic guitars for over a century, it creates an innate conflict between two key elements of a guitar’s sound: volume and sustain. The guitar’s top (its soundboard) contributes to both. The flexibility of the top generates volume (projection), while its stiffness generates sustain. And with X-braced guitar tops, here’s where the trade-off comes in: when something is made stiffer, its flexibility is reduced (and vice versa). V-Class bracing changes all that.
With Taylor’s V-Class bracing, an acoustic guitar top can be both stiff and flexible — for more volume and sustain. V-Class bracing provides stiffness parallel to the strings for more rigidity and, hence, sustain. Flexibility on either side generates the air movement necessary for robust projection. It’s the best of both worlds. This groundbreaking innovation also improves intonation — not only producing notes that are louder and with longer sustain, but are also more in tune with each other. V-Class bracing boosts volume evenly across the tonal spectrum, increases sustain, and improves the natural intonation of the instrument by creating a more synergistic response from the soundboard. This fosters a more harmonious relationship between the notes you play, helping chords to ring out in cohesive splendor. Pick up a Taylor with V-Class bracing and experience it for yourself.
Sitka and rosewood: a classic tonewood combination
As a top tonewood, Sitka spruce offers a combination of strength and elasticity that delivers a broad dynamic range with crisp articulation that’s ideal for a wide range of playing styles, from delicate fingerpicking to aggressive flatpicked strumming. Indian rosewood, used for this guitar’s sides and back, serves up an extended frequency range and rich, musical tonality that have elevated it to premium status among tonewoods. Its potent low end can serve up a throaty growl, while sparkling treble notes ring out with bell-like clarity. Slightly scooped in the midrange (as compared with mahogany), rosewood acoustic guitars are perfect for solo performance, vocal accompaniment, and tracking in sparser arrangements.
Cutting-edge Taylor Expression System 2 electronics
If you play plugged in, then you’re going to love the Taylor Expression System 2 (ES2) electronics built into your 812ce 12-Fret. The key to this fantastic system is the 3-section proprietary pickup located behind the saddle. Because of where it’s positioned and how it’s integrated into the guitar’s saddle, the ES2 pickup provides you with remarkably clear and accurate sound. In addition to a master volume control, a pair of tone controls let you tweak your highs and lows to get the sound you need, and a discreet polarity switch offers vital onboard feedback suppression.
Taylor 812ce 12-fret Grand Concert V-Class Features:
- Grand Concert body style delivers exceptional playing comfort and clear, balanced tone
- Handcrafted from the finest solid tonewoods by Talyor’s elite luthiers in their USA factory
- Sitka spruce top with graceful Venetian cutaway and ergonomically radiused Indian rosewood armrest
- Indian rosewood back and sides; maple body binding
- V-Class top bracing; koa binding, weathered brown pickguard
- Tropical mahogany neck, Standard profile, satin finish
- West African ebony fingerboard, 15-inch radius, West African ebony binding, Element inlays
- West African ebony bridge and pins; Micarta saddle
- 1.75-inch TUSQ nut; Taylor slotted tuners
- 24.875-inch scale length; 18 frets
- Taylor ES2 electronics
